Exploring WikiTree - Post 8: Searching for Common Ancestors

Previous posts in this series are in the summary post The Exploring WikiTree Compendium.

One of the possible uses of any online family tree system is that it be searchable for potential common   ancestors submitted by the registered users of the website.  A successful search may result in communication and collaboration between researchers to the (hopefully) mutual benefit of all involved. 

In WikiTree, which has just over one million profiles, I have found no direct matches with any of my 2,900-plus profiles.  That doesn't surprise me too much, seeing as how I didn't include any person past ten generations of my ancestry, and did not include spouses of the siblings of my ancestors.  However, I have many lines that extend beyond ten generations, especially in colonial New England, so I have found some common ancestors in WikiTree, but I don't have my own Profile for them, and am not on any Trusted Lists yet. 

So how do I Search?  And what can I do if I find one of my ancestors in the WikiTree?  Here is what I did today:

1)  There is a Search box at the very top of most of the WikiTree pages in the very top line on the page - the Search Box has "First Name" and "Last Name" fields.  Here is the screen shot:

The Search fields are just above my picture next to my name.  I entered First Name = "peregrine" and Last Name = "white," who is one of my ancestors (but not in my WikiTree database yet).

2)  I clicked on the "Search" button and was rewarded with a list of six matches:

There are three matches for the Peregrine White who was born aboard the Mayflower in November 1620 to William and Susanna (--?--) White. 

3)  The only match that listed parents of Peregrine White was the third one down the list - here is the Profile for Peregrine White from this submitter:

Because this Profile is "Open" (the default privacy level for subjects that died more than 200 years ago, and the Privacy was not changed by the Profile Manager), I can see all of the information submitted for this Profile.  If I want to discuss the information with the Profile Manager, I can type something into the "Public Bulletin Board" on the right of the screen above.  The message can have up to 800 characters.

4)  I clicked back to the Profile for Peregrine White's father, William White, and noted the information about William White, including the sources used by the Profile Manager.  I have some problems with some of this information, so I wrote a message in the "Public Bulletin board," suggesting that the Profile Manager check the Mayflower Families book for William White:

I believe that the WikiTree system sent the Profile Manager an email message with my message, but I don't think that it sent me a copy.  We'll see! 

5)  In order for me to collaborate with this Profile Manager, I need to request to be on the "Trusted List" for each Profile that I'm interested in.  Down at the bottom of the Profile, just above the "Memories About..." section is a link:

 "[For full editing rights, request to join William "Mayflower Compact"'s Trusted List.]

I clicked on the link and saw:



I filled in the form and sent it off to the Profile Manager.  I received a message at the top of the Profile saying that a message was sent to the Profile Manager asking him to add me to the "Trusted List."  I actually asked to be added to several of his persons that are not in my WikiTree.

Some comments about this process:

1)  When WikiTree has many more Profiles, it may be an onerous task to search for a match.  An "Advanced Search" that adds at least a birth year and birth place, a death year and death place, and a spouse's name is advised.  I received 57 matches when I searched for "william white" and it didn't show the particular one above for some reason (perhaps the "Mayflower Compact" middle name was confusing? 

2)  A "Search" page that has the different Search fields may be better for searchers looking for ancestral families.  also, a list of the Searches conducted by the WikiTree user would be very helpful.

3)  I struggled to find the "Trusted List" link - I even had to use the Edit Find to find it.  A link up near the top of the page would be more noticeable, and therefore used, IMHO. 

4)  The "Public Discussion Board" works well - easy and fast.  Does the Profile Manager get an email message?  Does the commenter? 

5)  The "Trusted List" request also is easy and fast. 

I'm curious to see how the collaboration process works! 

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday - Post 145: The Lyle Carringer House in 1922

I'm posting family photographs from my collection on Wednesdays, but they won't be Wordless Wednesday posts like others do - I simply am incapable of having a wordless post.

Here is a photograph from the Seaver//Carringer family collection handed down by my mother in the 1988 to 2002 time period:

This is a photograph of the house and garage at 2130 Fern Street in San Diego built by Lyle and Emily (Auble) Carringer in 1920 on the same block as the house that Lyle grew up in at 2105 30th Street.  In the photo above, the entry steps and front door face the street.  You can see another view of the front entry steps in Wordly Wednesday: Family Photographs - Post 69: The First Boy Friend?

The current house is shown in the last image in Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Your ancestral home.  The entry way faces south now, and the side of the house facing the street is protected by a wall.

How do I know when this photograph was taken?  My best clue is the little girl on the tricycle - which I showed also in a close-up view Family Photographs - Post 65: Betty's Trike.  That's my mother, Betty Virginia Carringer at about age 3, making it 1922 or 1923.

States My Ancestors Lived In

Here is a map of the USA showing the States that my ancestors lived in:

States my ancestors lived in

http://bighugelabs.com/map.php

This was generated at http://www.bighugelabs.com/.  The user can select the World, the USA, Europe, Asia, Middle East, South America, or Africa. You just click on the boxes and it shows the states for the subject you select.

My wife's ancestors lived in these states:

States Linda's ancestors lived in

http://bighugelabs.com/map.php

Thank you to Becky Jamison for the example on her Grace and Glory blog.  The first "find" on this today was Sheri Fenley on The Educated Genealogist blog, I think.

Exploring WikiTree - Post 7: Adding Family Tree Widgets to your blog or website

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WikiTree just announced that their Family Tree Widgets are being officially released today.  You can read the press release at GeneaPress here. 

The WikiTree "Embeddable Family Tree Widgets" page has much more information.

Here is an example from my own tree (note: tree doesn't show in RSS readers):

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

This is wonderfully easy to do:

1)  Read the Embeddable Family Tree Widget page for the directions and the choices of tree types and background types. 

2)  The page provides embeddable HTML code that you have to put into your blog post or web page.  Copy it from the WikiTree page and paste it into your blog page or web page (you will probably have to be in the HTML mode to do this - I did using "old" Blogger; then click back to "Compose" and the image is there!).

3)  Go to your own WikiTree (yes, you have to have a WikiTree account and family tree to do this!) and select the person you want to be #1 in your tree.  Select that profile in your tree, and note the URL at the top of your browser.  It should be something like "Seaver-27" - that's what my father's ID number is in the WikiTree system. 

4)  In the HTML code that you pasted into your blog post or web site, modify the first line from "Sample-7" to the WikiTree Profile ID number - in my case, I made it "Seaver-27" so my father would be #1 in the tree.

5)  Be sure to leave the "/2" in the HTML code - that tells WikiTree which tree type to select from the database!

I think this is really cool!  Thank you, WikiTree!  I can see many uses for this in trying to entice my extended family to participate online - I can add them to my family newsletters as images.

Here's another one for my great-great-grandfather, Isaac Seaver (note: tree doesn't show in RSS readers):

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

On this last one, the pedigree lines should be wider so that it is obviously a tree and not just some names on the image.  Once you get back before 1850 or so, pictures are usually not available to use.
Do my readers understand why I've been writing about WikiTree?  Once I saw these widgets about two weeks ago, I knew that I had to have them.

See DearMYRTLE's post Those WikiTree Widgets are officially out of beta  for more information, and links to posts showing her widgets.

UPDATED 1:45 p.m.:  I noted that the tree image doesn't show up in my Google Reader, and may not show up in any RSS reader because it is HTML.  I'm hopeful that it will show up in  the email feed. I'm not an expert in this - you can probably tell!

Tuesday's Tip - use Arphax FREE Surname search engine

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This week's Tuesday Tip is to:  use the FREE Arphax surname search engine to find early settlers with your selected surname on Federal Land plat maps. 

The Arphax Publishing website description is:

"Welcome to the home of two critically acclaimed book-series: the Family Maps series of Land Patent Books and the Texas Land Survey Maps series. Our books are published county by county, state by state, for original settlers whose purchases are indexed either in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management database (www.glorecords.blm.gov/) or the Texas General Land Office database (www.glo.state.tx.us/archives/landgrant.html). These are one-of-a-kind, customized maps and books created by attorney, software engineer, and family historian, Gregory A. Boyd.

"For the first time, you can locate your ancestor's Federal or Texas land purchase by simply finding them in one of our indexes, which direct you to a map of first-land-owners. And now you can learn who your ancestors' neighbors were or the history of settlement in area of interest to you! The Family Maps and Texas Land Survey Maps books are a helpful visual reference tool that make your landowner and parcel-boundary research easier than ever."

These plat maps usually show the first owner of the land bought from or awarded by the Federal governement, or purchased in Texas.  They currently have 23 states covered.  Go to their home page to see if they have the state and county you are interested in.

How do you know that there is a family with your surname in a particular county or state?  You use their FREE surname search page (click on the "Info" button):

The FREE surname search box is in the top right corner of the screen above.  I entered "Seaver" in the search field and clicked on "Surname Search" and it gave me 11 matches:

These matches provide only the County, State and Title of the map book with the name on it.  The red "Go" button takes you to a page where you can buy the book.  Note that it doesn't tell you the name of the person on the map, or the range/township/section to look on the map, but it does provide you with a clue that someone by that surname was a first settler in that county and state.

What can you do with this information?  You have two choices: 

1)  Print it out, or save it to a file on your computer hard drive, and take it with you to a repository that has the Arphax books you need to see on the shelf.

2)  Buy the book, either as an individual or as a part of a local genealogical society.

This method doesn't work well for a common surname - there are over 500 entries for Smith, over 500 for Brown, over 500 for Johnson, etc.  However, for a fairly uncommon name like Seaver (11 matches), Vaux (2 matches), Carringer (0 matches), Auble (2 matches, it works pretty well.  Those are manageable numbers.  You never know what you will find!

My thanks to Barbara Renick for sharing this FREE surname search site at the CGSSD meeting on Saturday.

UPDATE 3/23:  Reader Connie Moretti  suggested:

"Because it is a list of first owners, and you've been led to the county, you can use that information at the Bureau of Land Management site and find all the "good" information.

"I love Arphax books but use http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/  all the time...."

 

Thank you, Connie!  I should have pointed that out.

William Seaver's Murder in 1821 - Was it Ever Solved?

Last Tuesday, I posted "A Horrid Murder" in Alexandria.  The newspaper article about his murder on 6 July 1821 was lurid, but what happened after that?  On Thursday, I wrote William Seaver's Murder in 1821 - a Reward Offered - by the President of the United States, and three mayors.  The William Seaver's Murder in 1821 - A Jailhouse Confession post on Friday seemed to solve the case.  But did it?  Was Van Orden tried and convicted?  Was the reward paid to an informant?  Inquiring minds want to know! 

Unfortunately, I could find no more news articles in the available online newspaper websites about the case, perhaps because the online historical newspaper sites have only spotty coverage through the years following 1821.

While diligently searching, I managed to find an article published 7 December 1874 in the Alexandria Gazette newspaper (accessed on GenealogyBank (www.genealogybank.com).  The article transcription is long, but interesting:

"WILLIAM SEAVER'S MURDER

"In the meeting of the Society of the Oldest Inhabitants of Washington, held in that city on Wednesday night, reference was made to a murder that created intense excitement in this city at the time of its occurrence.  The Washington Republican, in alluding to the subject, says:

"The discussion in the Society of the Oldest Inhabitants relative to the murder of William Seaver, in 1821, at a point on the Alexandria and Washington turnpike, alongside the turnpike or near the stopping point, now called Fort Runyon, recalls the fact that no thoroughly reliable account of that murder has ever been made, and in the fifty years which have intervened, it has never been discovered, notwithstanding the rewards offered, by whom the murder was committed.  Some twenty years ago a sailor died at the Marine hospital, near Norfolk, who, it is alleged, confessed that many years before, he could not remember the date, he started, after his discharge from the navy yard, at Washington, with a shipmate, to walk to Alexandria, and that on the road he met a man from whom they attempted to take some articles of value, and on being resisted they killed him.

"A romantic account of the murder and its reasons was published in the Alexandria Gazette in 1866, derived, it was said, from a confession made in Central America and sent to a member of the Spanish American Legation at Washington -- The murdered man was there stated to be an old man, who, just before the late war, made his home in a cave near Four Mile Run.  The only well authenticated facts are that a peddler named William Seaver, having missed the packet boat then running from Alexandria to Georgetown, left Alexandria on the evening of July 5, 1821, to walk to Washington, and that he was never seen alive after he passed out of town.  Traces of blood were found on the road, near Roach's Spring, and the whole population of the neighborhood, assisted by many persons from Washington and Georgetown, turned out to search for the body.  They cut down all the undergrowth for half a mile, and at last discovered the body under a culvert in a stream near by.  A gambling haunt at the spring, near by, was soon after set on fire and burned to the ground, and several persons were arrested on suspicion, but the murderer was never brought to justice."

"A similar case of murder, without detection, occurred about a mile from the same point in the March of Gen. Pierce's inauguration.  The body of a white man, with his throat cut from ear to ear, was discovered a few days after the inauguration, on the tow path of the Alexandria canal, near Arlington.  The body was brought and exposed to public view in the rail yard.  Among those who saw it was a leading citizen, President of one of the city's fire companies, who recognized the body as that of his wife's uncle, a resident of Charles county, Md.  The lady, when brought to identify the corpse, exclaimed that it was her uncle, and fainted; but when a messenger dispatched to give his family information of the murder reached the house, the supposed murdered man was sitting at the table enjoying a hearty meal.

"A photograph of the dead man was taken by Mr. Grubb, of Alexandria, and the mangled body hid from sight under the clods of the valley; but some two years afterwards a gentleman from Pennsylvania, whose father had been missing at the time of Pierce's inauguration, came to Alexandria in search of information as to this murder, with a view of ascertaining if the murdered man was not his brother.  In this search he called at the newspaper offices at Alexandria, and was carried to Mr. Grubb.  Upon seeing the photograph he recognized it as that of his brother; but he, too, was mistaken, for the brother returned within a year after this recognition.

"if 'murder will out' it is a long time getting to light in these cases."

Isn't that a fascinating account of unsolved murders near where William Seaver was murdered.  There is significantly more detail about the circumstances of the murder and the search for his body.  There is also information about two other murders, and two more confessions!  And one more, likely still, unidentified body. 

The biggest clue in this article is the second paragraph: 

"A romantic account of the murder and its reasons was published in the Alexandria Gazette in 1866, derived, it was said, from a confession made in Central America and sent to a member of the Spanish American Legation at Washington -- The murdered man was there stated to be an old man, who, just before the late war, made his home in a cave near Four Mile Run."

Was that the William Seaver murder?  If so, at least two facts are wrong - William Seaver was not an "old man" - he was more like 39 years old, and he didn't "make his home in a cave."  What about this account?  And why was it called "a romantic account?"

Apparently, Mr. Van Orden was not convicted of the murder of William Seaver, and was released.  The reward money was not given to an informant, and this is a 53-year old "cold case" in Alexandria.  At least those questions have been answered, assuming that the memories of the oldest inhabitants of Washington remembered it correctly in 1874.

We'll take a look at it in the next installment of this dreadful, and seemingly unending, murder mystery story.

Amanuensis Monday - "...still go on Wasting and Embezzling..."

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Genea-blogger John Newmark (who writes the excellent TransylvanianDutch blog) started a Monday blog theme many months ago called Amanuensis Monday. What does "amanuensis" mean? John offers this definition:

"A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another."

The subject today is an agreement made by Christopher Champlin and his second wife, Elizabeth (--?--) (Davol) Champlin with respect to relieving bondsmen of their responsibility defined by the will of Elizabeth's first husband, William Davol. 

On 21 August 1722, Christopher Champlin and his second wife, Elizabeth (--?--), widow of William  Danell, made an agreement.  It reads (transcribed from "Westerly (Rhode Island) Town Council and Probate Records, 1699-1888," Volume 2, Pages 74-5, on FHL Microfilm 0,930,805, very difficult to read):

"To all Christian people to whome these presents shall come Know ye that whereas there is a Legacy Given to Elizabeth Champlin wife to Christopher Champlin Senr who was formerly Relict to Mr. William Danell deceased & he being of the town of Westerly in his Majesties Colony of Rhoad Island and Providence Plantations in New England (Viz.)

"Twenty Pounds mony twenty Loads of wood & the keeping of four Cretures ?? ?????? and yearly and every year during the whole course of her naturall life to be paid by the Son William Danel of sd Town & Colony as may appear by the last Will & Testament of the sd William Danel deceased who did make by sd last Will make and ordain William Danel her son an Executor to sd Last Will and testament and upon probation of sd will before the town Counsel of the town of Westerly the sd Councel did Require Bond of sd Danel with two sureties for his ??? Administration and performance of sd will & In Compliance with the sd Request Samuel Clark and Christopher Champlin Junr Both of the said town and Colony were both bound with the sd William Danel unto the aforesd Counsel as may appear by their Bond of two thousand pounds Currant mony of New England which is upon Record for the due performance of sd will the Bond haves date March the thirteenth day in the year one thousand seven hundred and Eighteen Coming nineteen & for the Better Securing the sd Sureties or bondsmen Clark and Champlin their Estates Heirs & Succesers which is altogether Requisite and needfull by Reason that it ????? Evident that the aforesd William Danel hath ??paid a Great part of his Estate & doth Still go on Wasting & Embezzling of the same Reference being had to the above written precept and Every Article & Clause yrof ???? of one Sd Elizabeth Champlin having Considered the Difficulty that may arise to said Bondsmen by ???? [an unreadable line inserted] of these presents for Ever Exhonorate Requit and Discharge the aforesd Samuel Clark and Christopher Champlin Jr and their heirs Executors and admr for Ever of and from all and Every part and parcel of the Legacy of twenty pounds mony twenty Loads of wood and keeping of four Cretures that is to say I do for Ever Requitt and Discharge the sd Clark and Champlin their heirs and Succesors from all that hath been due unto me by the above mentioned will from the begining of the world to the Date of these presence and from the Date of these presents to the end of the world. I the Sd Christopher Champlin Senr do by these presents allow and confirm all the above writen premises and in token and Confirmation that this is our lone and voluntary act and deed we have hereunto Sett our hands and seales this twenty first day of August Annoq Domini 1722.
Signed Sealed and Delivered his
in the presents of us  .................................... Christopher CC Champlin (seal)
Edward Greenman mark
Robert Austin her
Joanna Champlin  ........................................ Elizabeth EC Champlin  (seal)
G Davisson mark

"Mr. Christopher Champlin and Mrs. Elizabeth Champlin the Subscribing both presents appeared in Westerly this 29 Day of August 1722 and acknowledged the above writen instrument to be their voluntary act and deed before me, Joseph Stanton, Justice."

This document seems to describe Elizabeth's son, William Davol (called "Danell" throughout the document) who was required, by his father's will, to provide 20 pounds, 20 loads of wood, and the keeping of four creatures every year until his mother's death.  Christopher Champlin, Junior (son of the Christopher Champlin who married the widow Elizabeth) and Samuel Clark posted bond to ensure that William Davol's wishes were carried out.  But Elizabeth's son, William Davol, apparently has been wasting and embezzling the estate, and his mother (and her husband, father of one of the bondsmen) decided that she would agree to relieve the bondsmen of their responsibilities.  Elizabeth is probably saving her step-son some money and time by agreeing to this release, not knowing how her son will end up.

Was there a period anywhere in that second paragraph until the very end?  I didn't see one, or a logical break for one.  Perhaps there was one or more periods in the unreadable parts!

There is one interesting line in this document that I've never seen before:  "from the begining of the world to the Date of these presence and from the Date of these presents to the end of the world."  Isn't that interesting?

A researcher can sure find interesting, and sometimes unreadable, things in town council and probate records, eh?

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 13 to 19 March 2011

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Hundreds of genealogy and family history bloggers write thousands of posts every week about their research, their families, and their interests. I appreciate each one of them and their efforts.

My criteria for "Best of ..." are pretty simple - I pick posts that advance knowledge about genealogy and family history, address current genealogy issues, provide personal family history, are funny or are poignant. I don't list posts destined for the genealogy carnivals, or other meme submissions (but I do include summaries of them), or my own posts.

Here are my picks for great reads from the genealogy blogs for this past week:

*  My Tangent – Preparing A Document/Indenture For Transcription and Genealogy Research  by Jim Smith on A Genealogy Hunt blog.  Jim is doing yeoman work trying to find his Smith family ancestors - I don't envy this task.  But he's steadily working through the records on Grenada.  Check out this post for his process of preparing records so that he can efficiently use them and show them.  I'm impressed!

* Review: Comparing Scans on the FlipPal and Epson V500  by Denise Levenick on The Family Curator blog.  An interesting and useful comparison for typical family photographs.

*  Will My Genealogy Records Survive Me? by Lee R. Drew on the FamHist blog.  Lee has great suggestions to preserve your family history records. 

* RootsTech: A Replacement for Genealogy Conferences? by Anne Roach on the TechnoGenealogist blog.  Anne was the FamilySearch leader of RootsTech 2011, and has some questions for genealogists and technologists.

*  Using Land Records to Solve Genealogical Problems - Part 3 by Michelle Goodrum on The Turning of Generations blog.  This is a continuation of Michelle's excellent series on land records.

*  March-April Shades by footnoteMaven on the Shades of the Departed blog.  The topic is Photographs in Politics in this issue.  Is there a better online historical photo magazine available today?  This one is FREE, well-written, fascinating and beautiful.

*  Great Grandma was a Full Blooded Cherokee Princess - Now What????  by Roberta Estes on the Historical Melungeons, Native Americans, Appalachians blog.   Not so fast - there are some caveats here, and some links to more information.

*  GenPerfect–My Ideal Genealogy Software and More GenPefect by Mark Tucker on the ThinkGenealogy blog.  Mark lays a marker full of new ideas on software - who will be the first to adopt them?  Read the comments too!

* WikiTree: 5 generation updatable pedigree widget BETA by Pat Richley-Erickson on the DearMYRTLE Genealogy Blog.  Ol' MYRT is exploring in WikiTree also, and has great news!

*  Genealogical Standards – Building Blocks of the Profession by Carolyn L. Barkley on the GenealogyandFamilyHistory.com blog.  This is a road map for becoming a skilled and trusted genealogist.

*  Protecting Your Blog by Kathy Reed on the Family Matters blog. Kathy has found a neat way to make quality printed books from her blog posts.  I love it!  Good work.

*  Sorting Saturday - Document & Record log by Heather Kuhn Roelker on the Leaves for Trees blog.  Heather has a very useful Excel form to document her searches for a particular family.  I love forms!

*  My Foray into Geni.com by Taneya Koonce on Taneya's Genealogy Blog.   Taneya stated her likes and dislikes on using her Geni.com family tree, and compared the site to other online family tree sites.

Several other genea-bloggers wrote weekly pick posts this week, including:

*  Follow Friday: This Week's Favs by Jen on the Climbing Your Family Tree blog.

*  Follow Friday - Around the Blogosphere - March 17, 2011 by Susan Petersen on the Long Lost Relatives.net blog.

I encourage you to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blog to your Favorites, Google Reader, RSS feed or email if you like what you read. Please make a comment to them also - all bloggers appreciate feedback on what they write.

Did I miss a great genealogy blog post? Tell me! I am currently reading posts from over 850 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

Gary Hoffman and Barbara Renick at CGSSD Today

I really enjoyed both parts of the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego (CGSSD) meeting today at UCSD. 

In the first hour, Gary Hoffman made a short presentation on "Cloud Computing," describing what is "New" in the computing world, including the message of the Japan earthquake - put your valuable data in the cloud somewhere!  He then took us on a tour through some of the new features of http://www.ancestry.com/ (mainly about the Ancestry Tree app for iPads, iPhones and iPods), http://www.geni.com/ (date changes, adding sources), and New.FamilySearch.org (the Family Tree becoming available to the public gradually, not all IGI information in the tree).

In the second hour, Barbara Renick gave us a 90 minutes whirlwind look at a number of free websites - both genealogy related and non-genealogy-related - in "Internet Tools for Genealogists."  The links for many of Barbara's topics today are on her Links page at her ZRoots site - http://www.zroots.com/links.htm.  There are 115 links there on one page, including genealogy sites, search and travel sites, tool sites, organization and index sites, and library sites!

She highlighted the FamilySearch Research Wiki over and over (https://wiki.familysearch.org/) as a place to determine useful information for research helps, genealogy subjects, localities (country, state, county), and historical record collections on FamilySearch.  When Barbara finds a new website with useful genealogical information, she checks the FamilySearch Research Wiki to see if it has been included already.  If not, she adds it to the appropriate wiki page on the site.  This is a wonderful practice of "giving back and adding on" to grow the Research Wiki content.  Many in the audience of about 100 were unaware of its' existence and surprised by the content.  This was an excellent lead-in to my presentation next month at CGSSD about the updated FamilySearch website in general.

The most useful material for me was the information that can be obtained from many non-genealogy-related websites like Search Engine Colossus (http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/, for searching websites in other countries), RefDesk (http://www.refdesk.com/, for finding handy tools like Medical and Legal dictionaries, Calendars and lots more), EpoDunk (http://www.epodunk.com/, for information about localities), BabelFish (http://babelfish.yahoo.com/, which has no limits on translation text length), the www.Hamrick.com/names/  site (including surname maps for 1850, 1880 and 1990 census years), and many more.

I will try to feature some of the suggested websites in my Tuesday's Tip weekly series over the next few months.

All in all, it was an excellent genealogy day spent with friends and colleagues, and two exciting and helpful presentations.

UPDATED 20 March: Modified the Hamrick link to go to the Surname maps - thank you, Carol!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Contribute to the Genealogisms Dictionary

It's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun!!!

After the Friday Night Fun on Geneabloggers Radio (you have to listen to Geneabloggers Radio!), and being encouraged by the chatters with too much time on their hands (since WDYTYA? was a repeat), or too much Irish whiskey (who knew?), I have to do this topic this week.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (and, really folks, turnout has been pretty light these last two weeks) - is to:

1)  Recall that some genealogists love to make up new words to define what we do or where we are... we want to make a "Genealogisms Dictionary" so that we all understand what we're writing about.

2)  Make up one or more words that deal with some aspect of genealogy - they could start with genea- or ancest- or end with -ology (we don't care), and then define the word for us. 

3)  Submit your genealogisms(s) as a Comment to this blog post, or write a blog post of your own, or in a Facebook status or comment (please let me know if you do this in a comment here).

Here are some of my genea-logisms contributions to date:

*  genea-logism -- "a newly invented word or phrase from the field of genealogy."

*  Genea-gasm -- "the 'Magic of Genealogy' moment - a chill in my body, a tremendous feeling of thankfulness, and tears of joy.  Usually occurs in a moment of genealogy discovery or extreme happiness."

*  Genea-cave -- "the genealogy work area, surrounded by the ancestral collections of a lifetime of research, where you have all of your genea-stuff."

*  Forrest Gump Principle of Genealogy Research -- "Genealogy research is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to find, but you have to look everywhere your 'genealogy gem' might be hiding"

 *  Genea-crapola -- "unsubstantiated or fabricated online family trees, published books or articles."  synonym: Genea-dreck.

You get the idea!  Go forth and create more genea-logisms.